In July of 2015, Bookhouse was contacted by the chief marketing officer for Emory School of Law. The School wished to develop a coffee table book to commemorate its 100th anniversary. It was important to the school that the book convey the law school’s rich heritage. Since the book was also to be pressed into service as a development tool, it was equally vital that it tell the story of Emory School of Law today. There was both a desire to tell the stories of some of the renowned administrators and faculty of the school, as well as its illustrious graduates . . .and yet, to not go overboard on the “heroes,” as it were—that there are many unsung individuals who also have captivating stories to tell. Also, there are many viable programs with in the school (Global Health Law and Policy Project, Child Rights Project, TI:GER Program, etc.) with colorful stories that help shape the law school as one of the finest in the country.
Bookhouse was hired to produce this book, the sixth Emory University book Bookhouse has been instrumental in developing. The contract was signed February of 2016 with the project starting almost immediately.
Michele Cohen Marill, one of our talented writers.
The School did not have a manuscript and required an author. Michele Marill was hired for this task. Michele has written many Bookhouse books,
and she was perfect for this job. The law school also asked faculty and alums to write essays for the book. Individual essays add valuable voices to the tone of a book, and these writers address a number of topics on which they have expertise and or insight.
Michele delivered the outline of the book later in February, and the full manuscript in May. After many review periods and a some revisions the final manuscript was finished in July. The final word count was around 12,000 words, not including the essays.
Once Bookhouse has a manuscript, it’s time to match pictures with the Words. Renée Peyton, Bookhouse’s archivist and general Jill of all trades, went to the Emory Law Library to suss out images to match up with the historical portions of the book in July. The assistant law librarian and keeper of special collections helped her with this task. Emory has an extensive online Flickr presence so most of the current images were found on the Emory Flickr account. Sometimes Bookhouse will hire a photographer to bring a fresh eye to images, but that wasn’t needed with this book.
In May, we asked Emory to send us a few images so that we could create a prototype design for their book. Rick Korab, Bookhouse’s designer extraordinaire, did just that. The prototype design was approved in June, with actual design of the book starting in August, after the manuscript had been copyedited and all of the images gathered. Rick completed the design in early September. Once again, there were many rounds of review with the law school’s committee, and quite a few revisions with mostly photo swaps. This process took the longest, and Bookhouse finally had permission to print in February of 2017.
This book was printed at Taylor Specialty Printing in Dallas, Texas. Rob Levin, president, went on press with the chief marketing officer for Emory 
School of Law, and the books were delivered in March just in time for the law schools spring festival. Emory ordered 1,600 books, with about 890 of them going to a fulfillment center in Minnesota. Some to be sent out to a distribution list and the rest will be sold. Click here if you would like to purchase one of these books.
Bookhouse has enjoyed working with Emory University on all of their books since 1999. Hopefully there will be more books to come.
